The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments, of Great Britain and Ireland.Evans, John
History
The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments, of Great Britain and Ireland.
Evans, John
Bronze age -- Great Britain; Bronze age -- Ireland; Great Britain -- Antiquities
A Danish[758] knife of this character has five circular loops along
the hollowed back. A Mecklenburg[759] knife has three such loops and
corded festoons of bronze between.
The bronze knife or razor, shown full size in Fig. 262, was found at
Cottle,[760] near Abingdon, and is now in the British Museum. It is
of a peculiar and distinct type, but somewhat resembles in character
the oblong bronze cutting instrument found at Plonéour, Brittany,
already mentioned. It is thinner and flatter than would appear from
the figure. A Mecklenburg[761] knife or razor figured by Lisch is
analogous in form.
I have a rough and imperfect blade of somewhat the same character as
that from Cottle, but thinner and more curved. It has no hole through
it, but thickens out at one end into a short boat-shaped projection
about ½ inch long. It was found near Londonderry.
A diminutive pointed blade which appears to be too small to have
been in use as a dagger, and which from the rivet-hole through the
tang can hardly have served as an arrow or lance head, is shown in
Fig. 263. This specimen formed part of the Reach Fen hoard. A very
small example of this kind of blade, from a barrow near Robin Hood’s
Ball, Wilts, has been figured by the late Dr. Thurnam, F.S.A., in his
second exhaustive paper on “Ancient British Barrows,” published in the
_Archæologia_,[762] from which I have derived much useful information.
A small blade with the sides more curved is shown in Fig. 264, which I
have copied from Dr. Thurnam’s engraving.[763] The original was found
in Lady Low, Staffordshire.
A smaller example, with a longer and imperforated tang, found in an
urn at Broughton,[764] Lincolnshire, and now in the British Museum,
has been thought to be an arrow-head; but I agree with Dr. Thurnam
in regarding both it and the small blades described by Hoare[765] as
arrow-heads, as being more probably small double-edged knives.
[Illustration: Fig. 263. Reach Fen. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 264. Lady Low. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 265. Winterslow. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 266. Priddy. ½]
Some remarks as to the almost if not absolutely entire absence of
bronze arrow-heads in this country will be found in a subsequent page.
The larger specimens of these tanged blades of somewhat triangular
outline I have described as daggers, but I must confess that the
distinction between knives and daggers is in such cases purely
arbitrary. The more rounded forms which now follow seem rather of the
nature of tools or toilet instruments than weapons.
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